The very small aperture terminals (VSATs) will bring high-speed internet service to schools across the country over the next three years.

Petah Tikva, Israel-based Gilat has not disclosed the name of the country or the government agency. The contract is awarded under a state-sponsored e-education program designed to connect thousands of schools to the Internet.

Gilat's SkyEdge II is a multi-service platform that enables the delivery of voice, broadband data and video services. SkyEdge II is a standards-based system using DVB-S2 and DVB-RCS. With better efficiencies and full adaptivity for both the inbound and outbound channels, it provides higher performance that serves the growing requirements of a range of end-users.

The network is expected to be used predominantly to support school connectivity across the country's main urban regions and may be extended as part of the nationwide program.

“Latin America represents one of Gilat's key markets and we are proud to have our technology deployed where broadband connectivity is going to make a noticeable and important contribution to children's lives,” said Russell Ribeiro, Gilat's regional vice president of Latin America.

The SkyEdge II VSATs are supported by a unified platform, and suits all sorts of application needs of service providers.

Gilat builds terminals for satellite communications. In the past two years, it has won several contracts from U.S. military as well.

In other news, Gilat Satellite Networks (News - Alert) Ltd. recently announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Spacenet Integrated Government Solutions, Inc. (SIGS), received the third in a series of new contract vehicles through which to offer its products and services to government organizations and government contractors.

The latest award is a Federal Supply Schedule under the Future Commercial Satellite Communications (COMSATCOM) Services Acquisition (FCSA) program. This contract follows recent awards for a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) by the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), and a Basic Ordering Agreement (BOA) by the NATO Consultation, Command, and Control Agency.

Narayan Bhat is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Narayan’s articles, please visit his columnist page.